First off: great game!
It's KISS at it's finest - simple, quick, easy to learn - as well as fun.
(it almost makes me sorry that I can't script to save my life)
Just one question, though:
Why isn't Trade already built in?
IMHO it should be basic:
When you're at peace with somebody - you trade with them.
The formula shouldn't be all that hard either:
no. of population of the AI's colonies = Industry Bonus. For example.
To make it a bit more challenging, only AI colonies within the Ship Supply network (thin lines) could apply.
Just my 2 cents.
Cheers!
And keep up the good work!
I think there are various longer-term ideas for trade that do something more involved than just boosting an existing meter, which lessens the motivation to add a "trade" concept now.
However, if you like to see something like this implemented in the short-term, it would be helpful to provide a patch that does so.
Some time ago I played freeciv and, AFAIK, similar resources are managed. You can set up percentages on industry, research, trading and, given certain conditions as the empire grows, you have to spend several resources to keep people happy.
Thinking a bit and after playing a bit freeorion, I sometimes develop strategies which, given a certain moment and conditions in the game, with 4-5 technologies I'm ok and maybe I don't need to be industry-intensive sometimes (no need to build extra ships because I'm waiting for a stronger weapon to be developed and directly build stronger ships later). I had the feeling I was forced to put some "garbage" item on production in order to not waste industry, while I could "save" all that for later moments or quickly adapt to situations.
In that case, a planet could focus on trade to stockpile "money", and this money could be used later to quickly switch your strategy (paying some money to develop a technology, build a ship quickly to defend yourself in one turn...)... this way you can give newbies some forgiveness, and more advanced players a possibility to counterattack enemy strategies.
But, of course, this flexibility would come with a drawback for the player. If the benefit of stockpiling money is the same as that of a player who perfectly calculates research and industry production and manages his colonies accordingly, then everyone would save money and then quickly buy technologies or stuff depending on the situation.
Example: Imagine a planet which has industry focus, and then the player switches its focus to trade focus. Let's suppose that 20 people colony focused on industry/research increases the max output by 5 on that resource. On a colony focused on trade, that max output boost for trade could be for instance a 20% less, increasing it by 4. Then you start accumulating money which gives you the ability to insta-buy anything, giving you flexibility at the expense of efficiency. Of course, 1 point of "money" gives you credit to buy 1 point of industry or research.
